As part of my series of “40 PEEKS”, I’m sharing the photos I’ve been taking for Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life project.  Today you’ll get a view of what it’s like to spend a Saturday in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida.  My dad lives there and we spend many, many weekends there.  It’s such a nice getaway that’s just 40 minutes away from where we live and it’s always a welcome change of scenery.  While we were there this past weekend, I took some time to photograph what it’s like to spend time there which will be perfect to include in my Week in the Life album.

Stories from Saturday include:

• Waking up to a beautiful view
• Spending time with Dhimant and my Dad enjoying downtown and the beautiful weather
• Walking everywhere.  I love that we can enjoy so much without even getting into our car
• A trip to the Saturday market where we bought some fresh produce and Dhimant got lunch at one of the food stands
• A stop at my favorite scrapbook shop downtown – Whim So Doodle
• Dinner at 400 Seafood and Tap House

Such a fun and relaxing day!  Hope you enjoyed this “peek” of our Saturdays in St. Pete.  If you missed my previous Week in the Life posts, you can check out the photos using the following links:  Monday photos, Tuesday photos, Wednesday photos, Thursday photos and Friday photos.

Hope you all had a great weekend!  I’m back today with my Week in the Life photos from Friday.  As part of my series of “40 PEEKS”, I’m sharing a few peeks of our home  (both inside and out):

Stories from Friday include:

• Halloween breakfast – pumpkin pancakes!
• Lots of home organization that’s taken place over the past few weeks.  I took some photos of our refrigerator, pantry and closet to illustrate “life right now”.  It might be fun to look back on these years from now.
• Our outdoor fall decor.  Last year was the first year I had more than one pumpkin on our front porch.  (The one pumpkin looked so sad and lonely that I finally decided to get a whole family of pumpkins!)  I love all the different colored ones and love seeing them on our porch again this year.
• In the afternoon, we headed down to my dad’s place in downtown St. Pete to spend part of the weekend there.  I didn’t have any good photos from the evening but wanted to include this tidbit as part of our story for the day. 🙂

If you missed my other Week in the Life posts from last week you can find them using the following links:  Monday photos, Tuesday photos, Wednesday photos and Thursday photos.  I’ll be back tomorrow with photos from the weekend!  🙂

I’ll be honest.  I was running out of photo ideas when Thursday came along.  I’m really loving this Week in the Life project but Thursday was rough in the photo department.  There wasn’t really anything going on and I was kind of losing steam.  However, I pushed through, sat in front of my iMac at night and used the Photo Booth app to get a selfie so that I could include myself in the day’s photos.  Ali Edwards recommends getting yourself in at least one photo each day and this seemed like the only way it was going to happen on Thursday.  And then Dhimant walked in the room and got in on the Photo Booth fun so it ended up being quite entertaining.  I don’t have a lot of “peeks” to share today but here are a few from Thursday:

Stories from Thursday include:

• Depositing checks at the bank drive-thru
• Editing lots of photos for my Week in the Life album and the blog
• Dhimant working and eating in his office (which happens almost every day)
• My favorite flavor of Vitamin Water and the only other thing I drink once in a while besides water
• Silly selfies using the Photo Booth app on my iMac
• Happy mail for Dhimant.  I’m usually the one getting fun packages in the mail but today a Steelers sweatshirt arrived just for him!
• Writing blog posts in my office
• Favorite Thursday night TV show – Scandal

If you missed my other Week in the Life posts this week, you can see my daily photos using the following links:  Monday photos, Tuesday photos, Wednesday photos.

I’m still going strong with my Week in the Life project.  I’ve been taking lots of photos and using my DSLR more too.  Today is actually the first time I set up my tripod and used the self timer on the DSLR.  I’ve had this camera for YEARS and have never used the timer on it.  Can you believe it?  I use the TimerCam app on my iPhone all the time but somehow everything is a little scarier on the “big camera”.  Well, today I figured it out and used it and can’t believe I’ve never tried it before.  I love it and am so excited to use it more going forward.

As I mentioned previously, I’m sharing small glimpses of my life here on the blog as part of my series of “40 PEEKS”.  Week in the Life fits in this category perfectly and I’m enjoying sharing my daily photos in this space this week.  Here are my photos from Wednesday:

Stories from Wednesday include:

• His and hers bagels for breakfast
• Lots of ordinary household chores – emptying the dishwasher, filling the dishwasher, laundry, vacuuming, etc.  I’ve never really captured these activities on my camera before so it was kind of neat.  And, these are my first timer pics from my DSLR
• Date night dinner followed by a trip to Golfsmith, Target and Costco (isn’t that where everyone goes on date night?!)
• The price of gas has dropped dramatically recently and thought I’d capture that here.  Of course, Costco is usually a little cheaper than other gas stations and that’s where I like to fill my tank when possible
• Favorite Wednesday night TV show – Survivor (not pictured but I got a screenshot to include in my album)

If you missed my previous Week in the Life photo posts, you can see Monday here and Tuesday here.  Thanks for stopping by!

Two posts in one day!  I think that’s a first for me.  I’ve been going through all of my photos from the past few days and have created some collages to share here on the blog.  I’m loving participating in Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life this week.  It’s been great to practice and experiment with my “big camera” which I don’t always take out on a regular basis since it’s so easy to snap away with my iPhone.  I’m still using my iPhone for a lot of photos this week but I’m also making a conscious effort to use my DSLR and try to figure it out.  It’s amazing what a camera can do in manual mode and I love learning how to make tweaks to improve my photos.  I have a long way to go but for now, I’m just enjoying the process of learning and trying out different settings.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m sharing my Week in the Life photos as part of my series of “40 PEEKS”.  These photos fit perfectly in this category and will give you a glimpse into my life right now.  Here’s what happened on Tuesday:

Tuesday stories included:

• A walk in the neighborhood.  I love my Fitbit and love tracking my steps each day.  I’m pretty sure if anyone was watching me today, they would have thought I was crazy trying to take pictures of that “SLOW” sign in the road!
• Dhimant making lunch while on a work call and then eating as he continues to work.  This is pretty much his daily routine.  Those who say working from home is easy has probably never done it.  He works all.the.time and works really, really hard.  I know from my own personal experience of working from home for five years, it often means working way more than working in an office.  It’s hard to turn off and is ALWAYS there!
• Pancakes – I love them!
• Catching up on printing photos for Project Life.  I like to work in batches and printed 3 weeks of photos this week.  Even though I have a printer at home, I still like to print my Project Life photos at Costco.  We no longer have the 1-hour service at our location so I can pick them up a few days later or have them mailed to me for free.  This time I opted for them to be mailed to my home.
• Dhimant went to a hockey game with Joe and Justin.  Go Tampa Bay Lightning!

If you missed my post earlier today, you can view my Week in the Life photos from Monday by clicking here.

I know.  I haven’t posted in quite a while.  I’m not exactly sure why since I have things I want to post but I guess I just got involved with a whole bunch of other projects.  I’ve been on an organizing mission lately.  I’ve been super inspired by some blogs I’ve been reading online and started purging and reorganizing things throughout my home.  It started with my kitchen pantry and has since extended into our kitchen drawers, the refrigerator, bathroom cabinets and master closet.  It’s such a good feeling to get rid of stuff I don’t need or want and have whatever is left in its place.  However, in the process, I inadvertently neglected my blog for a few weeks.

But now I’m back!  I’ve still got lots of stories to tell and am hoping to post more regularly.  I’m participating in Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life project this week and it’s given me the kick in the pants to take more photos and tell more stories.  Ali is a master storyteller and is inspiring others to tell their stories too no matter how ordinary or exciting their lives may be.  So I’m telling mine.  I think it will be really cool to look back years from now and see what we were doing this random week in October.  Nothing special is happening this week for us – it’s actually pretty uneventful but that’s ok.  I’m focusing on things that we probably take for granted and would never think to document and I’m documenting them this week.  I also thought this project would be perfect to include as part of my series of “40 PEEKS”.  The photos I share will definitely give you a peek into my heart, home and daily life.  Here’s a look at photos from Monday:

Stories from Monday include:

• Getting my thoughts and gear together to begin this week-long project
• Breakfast right now
• Spending time on my computer checking email, reading blogs and shopping at Studio Calico’s monthly reveal
• Skincare products we currently use
• Continuing on my organizing mission and searching for bins at TJMaxx to put in my fridge
• Grocery shopping at Whole Foods for items with minimal ingredients and seasonings to avoid aggravating my stomach issues which I’ve been battling all year
• Dhimant’s weeknight exercise routine
• One of our favorite Monday night TV show – The Blacklist
• Dhimant’s LOVE for ironing!  I’m not kidding – he finds it relaxing and loves to iron while watching TV
• Daily dishes

Nothing too exciting but it’s life right now.  I’ll be back soon with my photos from Tuesday.  Hope you’re having a great week!

The page I’m sharing today is very special to me.  It includes what is probably the first photo ever taken of me and my mom right after I was born.  It’s one of the first times I’ve used a “vintage” photo on a layout and I hope to use more in the future.  Unfortunately my mom passed away in 2003 and I still miss her every single day.  I miss talking to her daily and seeing her smiling face.  I miss so many things about her and losing her is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.  So when I came across this photo of us, I knew I wanted to put it on a really special page.  A pretty page.  One that screamed “girly” to record our first moments together.

I came across a layout by one of my scrapbook idols, Wilna Furstenberg.  I love everything she creates and have taken both of her Art Classes and am now currently enrolled in her Art and Design class over at Big Picture Classes.  She just has a way with soft colors and a dreamy effect on her pages and I want to scraplift everything she makes.  The page below is something I lifted from her a while back but never shared here on the blog.  I love how she mixes different manufacturers on her pages and how she achieves such a feminine look.  I mixed things up a bit with my title and decided to use a vintage looking label with some wood veneer from Studio Calico and a roller stamp from October Afternoon.  Thanks so much, Wilna, for your ongoing inspiration!  🙂

The other day I shared a layout I made using the Penny Arcade kit that I received from Studio Calico a few months ago.  I really loved that kit and actually made several layouts that I scraplifted from various designers.  Today I’m sharing a layout that I lifted from another Maggie – Maggie Holmes.  I love the simplicity of her layout, the bold pattern and all of the stitched details.  I found a photo of my husband and I at a lunch date we had earlier this year to celebrate my 40th birthday and it coordinated with the papers perfectly.  I’m taking my scraplifting marathon to a whole new level this year and have been churning out pages like crazy lately!  I’m really enjoying the process and love that it’s getting me to use more of my supplies!

Today’s page is one that I scraplifted from the talented Maggie Massey.  I love how she used the cool Ashley Goldberg paper from the Studio Calico Penny Arcade kit and how she used strips of paper with the tissue fringe paper.  Such a great way to showcase so many products from the kit.  The photo is from a little breakfast date Dhimant and I had at a great bagel shop at the beginning of this year.  Thanks so much for the inspiration, Maggie!  🙂

I’ve been scrapbooking a lot lately.  I have a huge stash and have been trying to slowly work my way through it by scraplifting layouts created by my favorite designers.  A while back, a friend and I went to a weekend crop and spent the entire time lifting layouts from Kelly Purkey’s Sketchbook class at Studio Calico.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on those layouts and plan to share some of them here.  My favorite one is the page I’m sharing today.  I love those cute skyscraper die cuts and was so happy to find the perfect photo to go with the “city” theme of this layout.

Back in 2012, I was traveling A LOT for work and went to New York more times than I can count.  On one of those trips, my husband came with me and after I was done with work, we both took a couple of days off to be tourists in NYC.  We ate, walked, saw a show and had a fantastic time.  I love how this photo captures the essence of the New York – the crowds, traffic, tall buildings and “busy-ness” of the city.  Such a wonderful memory captured on such a fun, colorful layout!